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Slipknot says a cyber-squatter has been utilizing the URL slipknot.com to advertise counterfeit merchandise for much than 2 decades — and the dense metallic set is present waging a ineligible conflict successful pursuit of the domain name.
A national suit filed connected Wednesday (Oct. 15) alleges that an anonymous web relation has held the domain slipknot.com since 2001. Unable to usage this domain for Slipknot’s authoritative website, the famously masked metallic set hosts its store connected the clunkier URL slipknot1.com.
Little is known astir the slipknot.com cyber-squatter, different than the information that they ain a station bureau container successful the Cayman Islands. The band, which has been signaling euphony and touring since the 1990s, says this idiosyncratic intelligibly had atrocious intentions from the outset.
“The domain sanction was registered successful an effort to nett disconnected of plaintiff’s goodwill and to instrumentality unsuspecting visitors — nether the content they are visiting a website owned, operated oregon affiliated with plaintiff — into clicking connected web searches and different sponsored links,” writes Slipknot’s lawyer Craig Reilly.
The suit claims slipknot.com hosts pay-for-click advertizing that directs users to counterfeit Slipknot merchandise, including versions of the band’s signature masks, t-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with the band’s trademarks. These sponsored links wounded income of authoritative Slipknot merch, the set alleges.
“A instrumentality of plaintiff oregon idiosyncratic who different wanted to acquisition authorized Slipknot merchandise would undoubtedly sojourn the slipknot.com website assuming it belonged to plaintiff and past acquisition the slipknot merchandise linked to connected the site, causing damages to plaintiff,” writes Reilly.
Slipknot is present bringing claims nether the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, a 1999 national statute that created a pathway for individuals to reclaim domain names done litigation. They’re asking a justice to participate an injunction giving them ownership of slipknot.com.
The lawsuit besides accuses slipknot.com’s chartless tract relation of trademark infringement and unfair competition. Slipknot is seeking unspecified fiscal damages successful summation to an injunction.
A Slipknot rep did not instantly instrumentality a petition for remark connected Friday (Oct. 17).
English (US) ·